CULTIVATE: BEFORE TIME

An Overview…

Cultivate: Before Time is a twee farming adventure with a strong narrative based around a time travel accident that propels a whole village into prehistoric times.

The player is invited to explore the quaint village, prehistoric terrain, rugged moorland and mysterious caves in search of resources, tools and knowledge, learning to cultivate their land and survive in another time. Along the way, the player forges friendships, tames dinosaurs and crafts useful items. They discover the truth behind their trip into the past and must decide whether to return to their own time.

What do we want to achieve with our game?

Science! We want to be more scientific in terms of how environmental factors affect plant growth and take interactions between different plants and animals into account.

Non-transaction based relationships. Many games use transactions to build friendships/relationships in-game: giving gifts = friendship. We want to get away from this style of relationship building.

An interesting world made richer by story. We want the world of Cultivate: Before Time to not just be about farming, but to also be about exploring and discovering story.

Ultimately what we want to achieve with Cultivate: Before Time is an enjoyable experience due to itsreal world relevance.

We believe the latter will increase the former. If the player can emerge from the game with a greater understanding of permaculture principles and have achieved in-game friendships that weren’t ‘bought’, all while delving into a prehistoric time travel tale, that sounds like a worthwhile adventure to us!

What is permaculture? And how exactly are we intending on achieving the above? That’s for future posts! If you’d like to join us on our development adventure, sign up to our newsletter, or follow us on twitter @livingember.